I invite you to take your Bibles tonight and turn with me to Psalm 36, verse 9, and in your catechisms to questions 106 to 108. And does anyone need a catechism? Okay, I see those hands. Yes, I see those hands. That's a joke. Can I give these to Jacob and have him pass them out? Thank you. All right. We are going Psalm 36 verse 9. And we're going to be looking at catechism questions 106 to 108. We're going to embark upon about a four week study of prayer. And this is going to come right out of the final questions of the catechism. The last, I don't know, eight questions or so, eight to ten questions are on prayer and the Lord's prayer. And so I'd like to take the next four weeks and just unpack this idea of prayer. We've talked by God's grace and in the providence of schemes about prayer this year a number of times and you can really never talk enough about it because the fact, thank you sir, the fact of the matter is prayer is tough. And I know all of you know that. I do not stand before you as a man who has been perfected in prayer. I am a man who is ever and always in the school of prayer, sometimes getting D minuses. It's tough. And I don't think it's a symptom of our age. You know, sometimes people talk about, well, with iPhones and the Internet and This, that, and the other thing, it's just hard to pray. Now, it's symptomatic of man's heart. We just don't believe in God as much as we should. We don't delight in the promises and in the presence of God before the throne of grace as much as we should. So, tonight I'd like to just embark on a four-part series on prayer, and I want to begin with considering this beautiful, short phrase in Psalm 36.9, which says this. For with you is the fountain of life, and in your light do we see light. So last week was the blizzard and the epic blizzard of 2018. I hope it's the last. But my lawn was about this high with snow. And so, of course, I, being the man, had to go out, got to go out and shovel the snow off of my lawn. And, you know, you want to take moments like that to be a good father. And so I took Cohen with me. And, of course, he needed his little shovel. His little shovel that I was frightened by the fact when it occurred to me was somewhere in the shed, probably in the back corner somewhere. So it was already dusk, and the sun had gone down. You could barely see. I go into the backyard, and I'm climbing over this mountain of snow. I unlock the padlock to the shed, and there's no light in my shed. It's just there's no light whatsoever. I had one of those press lights, but it burnt out. So there's no light in my shed, and I didn't want to go find a flashlight. So what I did is I opened up the doors and the backlight of my house in the backyard was on. So as long as those doors were open, that light was shining in that shed so I could look for the shovel. So I put the doors open and the light is shining in. I had to climb over a lawnmower, over two ice chests, over a bike, and about three other things. And as soon as I got over all those things, a wind blows and the doors close. and I'm in the darkness and I'm thinking, that is so frustrating. Isn't it frustrating when you can't see things? Isn't it frustrating when you don't have light to illumine the things that are before you so you can find what it is you're looking for? It's frustrating when we don't know what we're doing because we can't see. And the same holds true in life. Sometimes we are at our wits end and we go to the Lord in prayer, begging him to give us something that we eagerly desire. But prayer, as many of you know, I'm not telling you anything you don't know, is more than just asking for something. In fact, I would say it's much more than just asking for something. Consider verse 9 with me again. For with you is the fountain of life. In your light do we see light. Now think about that for a moment. There's no word in here about prayer, but how do we see the light of the Lord's will? I would submit to you, we could see it in a lot of ways. We see it in providence just by what the Lord brings about in our life, and it shows us what his will is for us in any given circumstance. We see his will for us, his revealed will in the word of God. But I would submit to you this evening that another way in which God's light sheds light on our situation and helps us see where we need to be is through prayer. In fact, I would say in the school of prayer, we have illumination. Illumination for God's will for us, illumination of our own heart, and illumination of seeing God as who He really is, a heavenly Father and me as a child upon whom He has set the most greatest affection and love. So I want to consider prayer tonight very briefly and simply under the figure of light. And I'm going to do that under three headings. And the first heading is this. the searching light of prayer. Consider with me the first one, the searching light of prayer. And I want you to go in your catechism question to number 106, and we're gonna ask and answer question 106. Under this heading, the searching light of prayer. So, catechism question number 106, the catechist asks, what is prayer? And the catechumens answer, Prayer is an offering up our desires to God by the assistance of the Holy Spirit for things agreeable to His will, believing with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgements of His mercy. Now, under this heading and under this definition of prayer, I want you to note two ways in which prayer serves as a searching lamp. Two ways in which prayer serves as a searching lamp, okay? Number one, it's a lamp to illumine the will of God and align our heart with it. Prayer is a way to illumine the will of God and align our heart with it. As the catechism question or answer says, prayer is an offering up of our desires to God for things agreeable to his will. So I want you to understand, when you are praying, it is not simply going to God and saying, God, will you give me this? God, will you give me that? Which, in many cases, can be very fine, very noble, very correct. But the scriptures have taught us, and we could go through and show all the scriptures, but that's not really the point because you know, the scriptures have taught us that we always round off our prayers with what? If it be your will, may your will be done. Not my will, but your will be done. Jesus teaches us that. James teaches us not only to pray that way, but to talk that way. Don't say next year you're gonna go to such and such a place and start a business. Say, if it be the Lord's will. A lot of times I'll text people. If I'm gonna see them tomorrow, I'll say, Yeah, see you tomorrow, DV. And I always get people saying, what does DV mean? What is DV? Well, it's something that a hundred years ago, everybody said, because it's Latin for Deo Voluntas, which means God willing. And so you could use all the syllables, Lord willing, God willing, or you could just say DV, which is a lot easier. And so, but I think that it's not just a pious way to talk. I think it is a realistic way to talk, right? Don't wanna be morbid here, but you could get hit by a bus. Frankly, the way Virginia Beach drivers drive around here, that would not surprise me at all, okay? You could get hit by a bus, and you may not be here tomorrow. And so we recognize that our life is but a breath, and that breath is in the hand of the Lord, and if he wants to preserve it for another day, so be it. but our prayers are meant to align with the will of God. And so I would submit to you this evening, that should be an intentional exercise of your praying. In other words, it's not just something that serves as an appendage to the end of particular phrases in your prayer, but it is something that you are actively seeking out. Lord, is this your will? Is this something that you want for me? And Father, I'm not simply praying, but praying is also meditation. So I'm meditating upon whether that is your will, and I'm listening to what you're saying. I'm listening to the Word of God. I'm listening to how you speak to me through the Spirit. Don't take that the wrong way, but what I mean is, What kind of peace is the Spirit giving me in this situation, in this decision? It is a process to work through whether something is the will of God, and prayer is very much a part of that. In Your light, through the searching illumination of prayer, do we see light. So Psalm 62a, trust in Him at all times, O people. Pour out your hearts before Him. God is a refuge for us. Selah. So this is where a robust view of God's sovereignty, that he's in control of all things, and his foreordination, that he has planned all things before time began, is very helpful as we come to the Lord in prayer. Does God already know what you're gonna ask for before you ask it? Yes, Matthew 6, 8, Jesus says that. He already knows what you're gonna ask for. He has determined what will be before the foundation of the world. And so prayer is an act of worship in which we are seeking to align our wills and our affections with what God has determined. And if you want a verse for that, just to throw one out there. First John 514. And this is the confidence that we have toward him that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us according to his will. So again, the activity of prayer in the life of the child of God is to seek the will of God in the process of prayer. Jesus says, seek and you shall find. And this is why Jesus instructs us to pray things like, your kingdom come, your will be done. Let me ask you a question, just as an aside. And you don't need to raise your hands, but when's the last time you prayed that prayer? Your kingdom come. It's hard for Americans to pray that prayer. Because we've got plasma TVs, man. You know what I'm saying? We got DVR and we've got seat warmers in our cars. And, you know, I'm kind of joking, but I think a lot of times we we've come into our kingdom here. But you go to third world countries. Oh, my goodness. The three years that I spent in Mexico, some of the most vibrant sessions of worship were with people in the poorest parts of Mexico. And boy, did they pray in the kingdom. Boy, did they see, they taught me so many things. Their faith was so robust because it was a little bit easier for them to not get attached to things in this world. It was a little bit easier for them when the rains came down really hard, they couldn't leave their house because they didn't have roads. They had dirt mountains that when the rain came in, it just, it created ruts that were so big that half your car would fall into them. And so, well, I guess we're not going to the store today or the next seven days until the excavator comes, which by the way, you have to bribe him to get him to come out. I had to give a six-pack of beer to the trashman just to get him to come empty my trash. That's just how it works. So, I think, We need to gather a sense once again of what it means to ask the Lord that his kingdom would come. And what's the tail end of that? And that's the reason I started it. That your will be done. It's like a melody. It's like a refrain that we're singing and praying to the Lord. Lord, we want this so that your will will be done. Lord, we want that so that your will will be done. Father, what we want more than anything is that your will be done. And we want you to reveal your will to us so that we could be smack dab in the middle of it. Not my will, but your will be done. Now, turn in your Bibles very quickly to Deuteronomy 29, 29. This is a very important verse for you to understand when it comes to fleshing out the will of God in prayer. Some of you know it by heart, and you should. And if you're Reformed, you really should because it's really the backbone for understanding God's will. It's not unfair or inaccurate to say that God has two types of wills. Okay, his secret will and his revealed will. Listen to Deuteronomy 29, 29. The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever that we may do all the words of this law. So God's revealed will is what you are to do. 1 Thessalonians 4, your sanctification is God's will. It is God's will that you not kill. It is God's will that you not Commit adultery. These things are clear. But there are other things that are not so clear, like if I'm not married, who my future spouse is going to be, whether it's the Lord's will that I own a house, how many children the Lord shall give me if he'll give me any children at all. And those are up until the point until he reveals them to us. God's secret will. And so those are the things that in prayer we are praying for. and asking that the Lord would have reveal His will to us in Providence, but also even before that in our hearts so that we desire those things. We want to desire the things that are in accordance with God's will, okay? Now, when we talk about praying in accordance with God's will, always the objection comes up, you know, hasn't God already determined what is going to be? Does anybody know the answer to that? Has God already determined all things that are gonna happen? Good, good answer. That's what Paul thinks and that's what the rest of the biblical authors think. So then what's the purpose of prayer? Because how many times have we heard something like prayer changes things? Is there a sense in which that's true? Yes, I'm gonna use a word and you'll understand what I mean by this word. It's true phenomenologically. What do I mean by that? When you say the sun rises, is the sun really rising? No, if you even had science 101, you know that it's not. It's how it appears to you, right? You look at the horizon and you see the sun rising. That's called the phenomenological understanding of the sun rising. It's the phenomenon as I perceive it. And so we can certainly say that prayer changes things phenomenologically for us. But are we saying that it changes God? And the answer is no. You cannot say that. You should not say that. You must never say that. Because if God changes, we're all in a world of hurt. If God changes, then that means that he could get up on any given day, and I say this reverently, But he gets out on the wrong side of the bed and says, you know what? I don't wanna fulfill the promises that I gave to my covenant people through Jesus Christ, so I'm just gonna throw the whole thing in the trash bin. No, we don't want God's character to be one that is changeable. We want him to be unchangeable, and that's what he is. And so prayer does not change God, but it does change how we perceive things. So I always tell people, the answer to the question, you know, why should we pray if God has already determined all things, is the same answer to another question. Why should we evangelize if God has already elected all who are going to be saved? Why? Because we don't know. We don't know. As one of my old pastors used to say, it's not like the elect have an E tattooed on the back of their neck, right? And in the same way, we don't know in the realm of God's secret will what he's going to do. We don't know. And because we don't know, we pray. And well, we should. We should pray. So let me ask another question. Is there such a thing as an unanswered prayer? No. The answer is either yes, or the answer is no, or the answer is wait. And if the answers wait, then we continue to do what Jesus said. Keep on knocking, keep on seeking until the door opens. Be persistent! Enact holy violence as you come to the throne of grace. But there's no such thing as an unanswered prayer. And I've lost count of the sad stories that I heard from either disillusioned Christians or people who were once Christians that said, well, the Lord took my grandmother's life, and I don't think that was fair, and she was sick and dying on her deathbed, and I prayed that the Lord would save her, and he didn't, so he must not be real. What a man-centered view of what prayer is. You know what kind of view of prayer that is? God is the cosmic gumball machine, and if I put in my coin of prayer and turn the dial, out pops the answer to my prayer. That puts man in the seat of sovereignty. And it puts God as the gopher that's just running around answering all man's prayers according to his will, not God's will. But that's not the way that scriptures portray prayer to us. So, notice also the Trinitarian light of prayer. We pray to the Father in the name of the Son, Jesus Christ, which is presuming covenantal awareness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit. And I wish I could spend more time on that, but I can't. So the second way in which prayer is a searching lamp, second way under this head, is it illumines our heart before God and the blessings he gives. It says in the catechism question, believing with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgements of his mercy. One of the things that prayer does as you go before God and you confess your sins is prayer, just like the Word of God does, serves as a mirror to show you who you are. If you could come before God in prayer and not confess your sins, you do not understand the consuming fire that God is. It should stir you when you come to God in prayer. you should realize that I do not come in willy-nilly as if we're on good terms. We're on the same level, me and God, which is not only bad theology, but bad grammar. It's God and I. But anyways, no, you don't come into the throne room assuming that you're on the same level. You're never on the same level. And because of the creator-creature distinction that will exist on into eternity, God is God and you are not, we must always come before Him with a confession of our sins, and in so doing, that searching lamp of prayer through confession shows us who we are. And when we see who we are before God, we are all the more willing to thank Him for His many blessings. Thank Him for not wiping us out. Thank Him for having mercy upon us yet another day. Thank You for clothing us. Thank You for putting a roof over our head. Thank You that in this season of cold that we are still healthy and well. And so prayer serves as a lamp to illumine our heart before God and the blessings that He gives. We dare not go before God and be double-minded. We dare not go before the Lord and ask that he would do one thing and then open our eyes and get up off of our knees and go out and do the exact opposite. That's what James describes as a double-minded man. You know, it's the guy that's facing in two different directions, right? So then consider secondly, the second heading here, prayer is light. Think of the light of the word in prayer. I'm just gonna move quickly through this. Question 107, what rule has God given for our direction in prayer? Let's answer together. The whole word of God is of use to direct us in prayer, but the special rule of direction is that prayer which Christ taught his disciples commonly called the Lord's Prayer. Let me just say two things here. Number one, you should pray scripture as often as you possibly can. If you are not good at prayer and you don't need to be ashamed of that, if you do not excel in prayer, take the Psalter, take the book of Psalms, pick a psalm and just pray it. Just pray it. And you know what? As one of my mentors always say, that's a good way to prime the pump. You know, you understand that expression, you kind of prime the pump and then the water starts coming. Well, in the same way, when you take a psalm and you begin to to chew the cud on that psalm, prayerfully speaking, and pray it out to God, cry it out to God, maybe even a few psalms, then you'll notice that your own thoughts will start coming. You may even notice that your own thoughts will be cast in the rubrics or the patterns or the thought structures of the psalms that you just read. And it's not just the Psalms. Paul has beautiful prayers. But as our divines give us in the catechism, the Lord's Prayer is a very, in a special sense, a very helpful pattern for our prayer. And it is not to be recited over and over and over as if it were a, you know, a cantation, incantation or spell or something like that. But it is to be used as something of a pattern, and it is perfectly appropriate for us as a congregation, even on a Sunday morning, to recite it together, and you might see more of that in the future. In fact, in our rich Reformed heritage, and as they have put together liturgies, I think of Calvin and Busser and the whole, really, Presbyterian Reformed tradition, it is very common for them to have the whole congregation cite the Lord's Prayer. So then finally, let's consider prayer in this way. Number three, the illuminating posture of prayer. The illuminating posture of prayer. Consider question 108. What does the preface of the Lord's Prayer teach us? And we answer, the preface of the Lord's Prayer, which is our Father in heaven, teaches us to draw near to God with all holy reverence and confidence, as children to a Father, able and ready to help us, and that we should pray with and for others. Before I finish this last point, if you have children in class, please go get them right now, it's seven o'clock. I wanna be respectful to our teachers. You're welcome to come back. The kids cooing and yelling and stuff does not bother me, trust me, okay? I wanna notice two things here, two things under prayer as an illuminating posture, okay? Number one, you are to see God as your father, which means that you address him with reverence. I know that some of us have come from evangelical circles and maybe some evangelical circles that with respect to prayer a little sloppy. So I mean, I've heard people say, Hi, God, how you doing? And I get it. I understand. Don't don't get me wrong. I'm not beating up on them. I understand why people do that, because Maybe they haven't learned how to pray with the kind of reverence that scripture puts before us as an example. And maybe someone has taught them, look, as you would talk to a friend, talk to God. And I understand, but I guess the element that I think is maybe missing there is as much as I love my friend, I love Scott, And I even revere Scott in many different ways, but I revere God much more than I revere Scott. And so I'm going to address my petitions and my comments and my thanksgivings to God in a much more reverent way than I am to my friend. And so the first thing that we are to note is that there is to the posture and prayer is to be one of reverence. But now let me say a last thing, and I'm going to spend just a few moments on this. And please listen to me very carefully. The catechism in conjunction with the scripture talks about addressing God as our father, which means that we are children. Now, there's only really one place in Scripture, namely Acts 17, that talks about the idea of all people in the world being children of God and having God as their Father. And that is Paul on Mars Hill, and he's trying to relate with the Areopagans, or the philosophers, and showing them that all people have the image of God stamped on them. But that is in a common grace sense that is not in a special redemptive sense. What do I mean by that? What Paul means by that in Acts 17 is that we are all his literally offspring. We have all come from God. That's really what he's getting at. OK, but can somebody have illegitimate children? Yes. And I won't use the B word. OK, yes, they can. And unless and until somebody comes to God through Jesus Christ in repentance and faith, they are illegitimate children. And so when we come to God as our father in prayer, we're not coming to him as illegitimate children, we're coming to him as legitimate children because we have been justified by the person and work of Jesus Christ. Now I say that because two weeks ago I made an offhanded comment in a sermon, and I stand by it. I asked the question, does God hear the prayers of non-believers? And I said no, and I didn't have time to unpack it because it wasn't the point of my sermon. And I thought later, afterwards, I shouldn't have done that. I should have given more time. And so I want to briefly do that tonight. I don't know if some of you were surprised by that. That God does not hear the prayers of non-believers, but let me unpack that a little bit more Okay, first thing I want to say is God hears everybody's prayers with respect to their prayers ascending to heaven Of course, he hears them. That's not the point But, and secondly, everyone is commanded to acknowledge God through prayer, okay? Prayer is a command, okay? It is inherent to every person, whether they are a Christian or not, that they should acknowledge God for his goodness. What was the foundation of the first sin of Adam and Eve? Paul says in Romans 1 that having been given all that God gave them, they did not give what? Thanks, thanks and glory. How do you give thanks to God? You do it through prayer. You do it with your life too, but you do it through prayer. So they didn't do that, okay? But here's the question. The question is, what is God's posture toward those who pray toward him? The only way that God interacts with mankind is through covenant. I repeat, the only way that God condescends to man and interacts with man, right out of the language of our confession, is through covenant. And there are only two covenants that mankind is in God with. You are either in the covenant of works, which means that you have agreed to God that you will please Him by your own works, which is impossible, Or you're in the covenant of grace through Jesus Christ, where he is that second Adam, and he has done those things for you. So when people lift up their prayers, they're either lifting them up as a son or daughter of Adam and Eve or a son or daughter of Christ, if you will. Okay, so does God hear those prayers? Again, he hears them literally, but he is in no covenant obligation to answer those prayers. Do you understand what I'm saying? The only prayer that God hears of a non-believer is the prayer of repentance and faith. Do you understand what I'm saying? Now, you will come across non-believers that'll say, I'm not a Christian, but you know, I got in a pinch the other day and I prayed that God would get me out of a ticket and I didn't get a ticket. So God must love me and I must be great. No, you know, oftentimes God will answer non-believer prayers that end up being a curse to them, right? Lord, just let me make my first million by the time I'm 25. And maybe God lets them, and maybe it ruins their life. So God is a father to all in common grace, but he is only a father to his covenant people through repentance and faith. So where does that leave our children? Let me close out with First Corinthians 714. Please turn there. First Corinthians 714. This is very important, especially those of you who have children. Even if you don't have children, it's important as we think about our children. Because I hope that you've asked the question, if God doesn't hear the prayer of non-believers, then why am I teaching my children to pray? Well, there's a very good reason. I've already said one of them. God has commanded them to pray. Number one. Number two, you need to teach them what to expect and how to do it so that when the Lord quickens their heart, they've already had practice in it. But Paul was dealing with a similar situation in Corinth. And what was going on is that there were Believers who had before they become believers, married unbelievers. And now they're in this weird situation. Like, what do I do? Do I divorce them? And Paul says no. But he says something very interesting in first Corinthians 714. He says. For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. Now, what does that mean? Well, let me tell you what it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean that they're saved, okay? And the reason why is the same thing that is said about the children, that they're holy in the noun form, is said about the unbelieving husband and the unbelieving wife. They are made holy. It's the same root word in Greek, hagiazo. You could either see it in a Greek verb in the form of the unbelieving husband and wife, or in a noun, hagios, in the case of the children. But what I want you to notice is they're set apart. What does that mean? It means they are set, holy means set apart for a particular purpose. And so what makes our children, the children of believers, set apart or holy or different than the children of non-believers? Here's the answer. They are constantly exposed to the means of grace. They are constantly exposed to pieces, to scripture, to prayer, to holy upbringing and instruction. These are tremendous blessings that children of the world do not give. You know, people want to talk about child abuse for this, that, and the other thing. I think the most prominent form of child abuse is to tell your child there is no God. The most prominent form of child abuse is not wash your children in the water of the Word. And so even if our children have not yet repented and placed their faith and trust in Jesus Christ, they have the highest form of common grace that I believe mankind can have. And that is to be reared under the means of grace, to be brought up in the church. And so, are they different than pagans? Yes, they're a little different. They're a little different than pagans. They have something that pagans don't have. Are they so different that they're saved? No. They're kind in this in-between state, but they are holy. Okay? So, should we teach them to pray? Absolutely. Christ is the light of the world. And He meant to show us who we really are. We're in union with Him through faith. We have the light of prayer to constantly redirect our doubting and our double-minded hearts back to Him. We need to do that for ourselves. We need to do that for our children so that the Lord might regenerate them. And who knows? Who knows if in all your instruction to your children of how to pray, the Lord doesn't regenerate their hearts while they're offering up a prayer to the Lord? Could He not do that? Is that not the kind of God that He is? Certainly it is. Let's pray. Father God, forgive us of our sins. Give us this light of prayer to illumine Your will, illumine our hearts before You, illumine the blessings that You give us, and illumine our posture and prayer before You. In 2018, we ask all these things in Your Son's name. Amen.